May 2021 – Kangan Arora

Teaching as Performance and Is ‘charisma’ important?

The discussion this week focused on teaching an invisible audience, teaching as performative activity and tutors receiving ‘feedback’.

Hattie Voelcker’s ‘Performing with an invisible audience‘ came with lots of good advice considering we have all had to adapt to remote teaching and online delivery to often a blank screen or tens of black squares. Perhaps the best takeaways for mhhhyyy hhe were some of these tips from teachers –

Encourage interaction
Accept silence
Keep it real and don’t aim for perfection, it’s ok to stumble over your words.

Accepting silence and ‘making room for silence’ as discussed in Victoria Odeniyi’s lecture on language (reflection here), are both important for students to digest the content and reflect to formulate relevant questions.

The tips from performers seemed less relevant in our context, albeit the one about watching the video recordings over to see what we can improve on. I have tried ‘looking at the dot’ when talking to students online and felt this has disengaged me from the conversation because you’re focusing so hard on the dot, I’d rather be looking at the blank black squares that appear if students’ don’t turn their cameras on.

There were some more useful and practical suggestions in the Padlet Lindsay set up for us to contribute our ideas about ‘teaching invisible students’. Simple actions like inviting contribution through the use of whiteboards or creating a sense of belonging by facilitating student led social sessions by giving them agency.

Is ‘charisma’ important?

The second part was a discussion around the most important issues arising from an excerpt from Bruce Macfarlane’s 2004 book Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice (Routledge). My group (Rochelle, Seema, Yasmine) and I discussed whether ‘charisma’ is important? Whilst I was of the opinion that charisma can often be a facade to hide insecurities and that teachers cannot rely on charisma alone to mask or enhance their teaching abilities, my group convinced me to see charisma as a more positive force. Charisma as passion, as something that encourages engagement as passion can be infectious. Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society perhaps epitomises this view.

Lindsay’s question from the notes is perhaps more interesting – is charisma gendered?

The two resources that Lindsay shared with this question helped put in context the current understanding of ‘perceived charisma’ for men and women, however it’s worth noting that the studies were geared towards charisma in leadership (management and politics) and entrepreneurship rather than teaching.

It might help to define what exactly is charisma the meaning of which Kellerman acknowledges has been watered down in recent years when talking on the HBR IdeaCast podcast. She describes the relationship between leaders and followers and although some modes of education around the world may follow this model, from my understanding increasingly universities have been moving away from the traditional teacher-centred model to more student-centred ones, where teachers alone aren’t considered the imparters of knowledge. However, when it comes to the question of whether men are more charismatic leaders than women; the whole arguement may be skewed as women have historically been written out of leadership roles.

The Prosodic Charisma Training report contradicted Kellerman who believes that charisma can’t be taught or acquired. The training measures charisma with respect to performance in pitching business ideas. I think it the report highlights more deep rooted problems like gender bias and discrimination that creates the gender gap in successful business men and women. Is it really charisma that the women are acquiring through the training, or is it confidence?

Bibliography:

Voelcker, H. 2020. Performing with an Invisible Audience [Video] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5a_eU_H0o (Accessed: 28 Feb 2021)

Excerpt from Macfarlane, B. 2004. Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice. Routledge. Teaching Evaluation case study

HBR IdeaCast. 2009. What Charisma Really Is (and Isn’t). 2009 [Podcast] Available at
https://hbr.org/podcast/2009/02/what-charisma-really-is-and-is (Accessed: 31 May 2021)

Niebuhr O, Tegtmeier S and Schweisfurth T . 2019. Female Speakers Benefit More Than Male Speakers From Prosodic Charisma Training—A Before-After Analysis of 12-Weeks and 4-h Courses.

Love and Care

Love and care are crucial for establishing a sense of belonging. For this week’s discussion, I read/watched three resources – Bell Hook’s introduction to her book, All about Love, Laura D’Olimpio’s Ethics of Care and Lindsay Jordan’s Love & Belonging in the Educational realm (lecture and notes).

It was interesting to read both Hook’s observation about the gender imbalance when it comes to theorising love (it seems to have been the domain of men for many years) and D’Olimpio’s explanation about the Ethics of Care, a feminist approach to ethics challenging traditional theories as male centric, that focus on universal, rational and logical rules whilst dismissing care and emotions that are stereotypically associated as ‘feminine’ and unimportant.

I fully endorse the Ethics of Care, as one cannot apply a moral blanket when interacting with a diverse group of students. Students have different circumstances and needs and the care we take to address this has to come from a place of understanding and individual response. Lindsay Jordan also advocates for this in her notes about Love and Belonging in the educational realm, where she says that ‘It makes little sense to speak of the student experience as something singular. Experience is something that an individual goes through.’

I attended the discussion for this session with a different tutor group and it was really lovely to meet and interact with a new tutor and group of peers. Whilst we were discussing Hooks and D’Olimpio, it was observed by one of my peers how many of the new ADF (Academic Development Fund) roles that UAL recruited for in 2019 were filled by women. This is particularly interesting for me as I was one of the new ADF recruits and there is a huge emphasis on pastoral care embedded in my role. I think it’s important to note that there is an overwhelming feeling amongst staff that a lot of decision making that happens by senior management (who are by and large white and male) bears little relation to the reality on ground, where we have to navigate the rules to provide care and create a sense of belonging for each individually, albeit not always successfully.

In smaller breakout groups, we were asked to think about this question – ‘How do we include care within our teaching?’ Seems like such an obvious thing that one would automatically do, but really sometimes is overlooked. There were a range of answers and specific themes emerged – some focused on the virtual learning environment – I’ll summarise below as I think it’s a great list to look at when planning a session or indeed the larger curriculum –

Integrating pastoral and taught sessions
Buddy scheme
Sign-posting – academic support
Drop in sessions/Open door policy
Personal Tutor System
Establishing mutual responsibility between students, suggesting they are responsible for each other’s learning too
Community social building event/activities
Making academia accessible

This last point was picked up upon and we discussed Intellectualisation v anti-intellectualisation. I am of the opinion that you have to cater to different learning needs. That doesn’t imply anti-intellectualisation but employing different methodologies and resources to aid your students’ understanding and learning. Surely it shows that you care and are trying to make your teaching more inclusive and accessible.

Another important point is the use of language. In the Inclusive T&L unit, one of my colleagues shared an article that I feel is relevant here – How compassionate language can enrich your life by G. Lains. Lains concludes that ‘words that come from a place of true love and kindness can be transformative in the most positive ways in a person’s life‘. By creating a safe space where students can interact without judgement, we are creating a space where they feel they belong and feel supported.

As part of my ADF role, I made a few initiatives to address pastoral care and community building.

Bridge time

CSM Kings Cross. Photo: The Architectural Review

Once or twice a term, I offer one to one sign up sessions on the bridge at CSM, which moved online during pandemic. The idea was to be more visible (hence the location) where students could informally drop in and talk about anything they wanted to, whether they needed extra pastoral support, a tutorial or just a chat. It was felt that if tutors are sat in the office, students often feel intimidated to approach them, whereas the bridge is a more approachable shared space that belongs to us all. As online teaching eliminated any visibility tutors had outside of scheduled teaching time, the online bridge time sessions proved very popular.

Culture Club/CSM Textiles Club

‘Culture Club’ started as a community building exercise for year 1 students, where as a group we would visit galleries and museums to see exhibitions that would enhance their learning experience for particular projects. It was seen as a chance to interact with students outside of campus and enjoy ‘London as a resource’ together, especially as this is often the first time a majority of students will visit or live in the city. Students were also invited to contribute to a shared Moodle page that listed relevant resources in terms of exhibitions, suppliers, museum listings etc.

As the year progressed, we realised that the field trips were harder to organise within the demands of an already full time table, and students couldn’t spare the time for it. The Moodle page was rarely accessed as Moodle can often be clunky and uninspiring and it was hard for students to contribute to it without admin access.

With the introduction of new platforms during the pandemic, we moved this resource list to Padlet as ‘Things seen and heard‘ where it is much easier for students and other staff members to contribute. We also started the CSM Textiles Club on Instagram that made sharing and communication a lot easier.

During the pandemic as we moved to remote teaching, the importance of ‘love and care’ and ‘online communities’ really came to the forefront. As students suffered from isolation and low morale, tutors and universities came up with various ways to support them. I attended a great talk by Vicki Fong, MA Textiles tutor at the RCA called ‘Designing for online communities‘. Amongst other initiatives, Vicki started strength training with her students to promote well being through exercise.

As part of SIP, I want to explore community building initiatives further with the aim to foster belonging to the course and interaction between all the year cohorts, where although some ideas may be tutor initiated, they eventually become more student led where students support each other.

Self care for staff

Something to consider is also self care for staff involved, the pandemic has really blurred the boundaries between our personal and professional time. Being a fractional staff member myself, I have struggled to ‘log off’ on days on which I don’t work for the university and focus on my professional practice. There is a culture of ‘always being available’ that really needs to be addresses within course teams without feelings of guilt creeping in.

Bibliography:

Hooks, B. 2000. All About Love. HarperCollins, New York

D’Olimpio, L. 2019. Ethics of Care [Online]
https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-ethics-of-care/

J, Lindsay. 2020. Love & Belonging in the Educational Realm

G. Lains. 2020. How compassionate language can enrich your life [Online]
https://thriveglobal.com/stories/how-compassionate-language-can-enrich-your-life/

Fong, V. 2020 Designing for Online communities [Online]
https://the-dots.com/events/new-designers-designing-for-online-communities-2505

Microteaching: Colour

Slide one of my microteaching activity where we discussed how colour can be a very emotional and personal object.

We were asked to design a micro-teaching activity around OBL or Object based learning. Chatterjee (2011) emphasizes that ‘Objects have the power to inspire, inform, excite and educate; they can be used to acquire subject specific knowledge as well as more generic transferable skills such as communication and teamwork. Object-based learning in higher education draws on many of the learning strategies already known to inform students, including active learning and experiential learning.’

I had some limited experience of OBL drawing on when I initiated and participated in a session with the CSM Museum last year for our year 1 textiles and jewellery students, designed to discuss cultural appropriation. However, as it was in person where one could look, feel, handle the object the task at hand to translate this in a virtual environment was somewhat different. I decided to use this contradiction to plan my micro-teaching activity around colour – both virtual and physical, emotional and practical.

I designed the session aimed at Year 1 design students to discuss ‘colour and colour communication’. I wanted to choose something universal that everyone has to encounter in both their personal and professional lives and these interactions would form the basis of their engagement.

The session aimed at developing ‘visual literacy’ and ‘communication skills’ by looking at colour as an object. We discussed the emotional and intangible qualities of colour to begin the session. I showed the group the image above and gave them some time to articulate how they would describe this to someone who didn’t have a visual of it, without referencing the actual colour. (for eg: the colour of the sea) It encouraged them to draw on their own experiences and relate colour to a particular place or activity. Larry’s description, I thought was pretty spot on – ‘bright colour that can be added to a cone ice cream’.

Slide from my presentation showing the NCS (Natural Colour System) method of colour communication.

For the second half of the session, I wanted to focus on the ‘practical’ side of colour. As designers, how do we communicate colour across physical/virtual spaces, across substrates, from studio to industry. As important as emotional poetic colour communication is, it often fails to translate if we use it in industry. For eg, the colour of the sea is different in different parts of the world, is different in the same place in different seasons, even on the same day at different times of day.

I asked the group if they knew of any colour systems that help designers to accurately communicate colour for print, manufacturing etc. Pantone was the most common answer, but no one knew that the Pantone numbers mean, are we supposed to read a Pantone number and know what the colour is? To be honest, I don’t know either. So, I use something called NCS or Natural Colour System, a colour system that is based on how we see colour, which we went on to understand through the three characteristics of colour – Hue (pure pigment), Value (lightness/darkness) and Chroma (amount of colour in a hue). Once we had understood how to use the notation, we went back to the colour I showed at the start to try and come up with it’s NCS notation.

Slide from presentation explaining how to read the NCS colour notation

In hindsight, I should’ve had another slide listing and showing various colour systems from around the world as no one had heard of any others – Munsell, Colour Aid, RAL or more obscure ones like Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour. I wanted to minimise the slides as the brief suggested we drive discussion around one object, however it would’ve been useful in this instance and given the group more resources to refer to after the session.

I received some very useful feedback from the group, which will help make the session more coherent and engaging.

Ocean and Karen enjoyed starting with the ‘conceptual’ part of the activity before jumping into the practicalities. They found the discussion around ‘colour systems’ interesting but would’ve liked more time to understand the notations and colour charts. The discussion around industry colour communication made Larry appreciate the difficulty of the task, having the tools to communicate the accuracy of the colours he wishes to match will be helpful in future interactions with his printers. Vikki suggested the use of Miro, which could help simplify the colour chart exercise and make it more of a group activity, rather than individual. At the time of the micro teach, I had not used Miro but have tried it since and agree that this would’ve made the session much more dynamic as it serves as a visual whiteboard where a group of people can brainstorm and collaborate.

In the past I have tried this session in person where the first part was more of a game, where I put a colour in an envelope and asked the students to describe it to their partners who tried to match the description to a colour in a Pantone colour swatch book. Vikki asked me to consider how I could bring this playful element into a virtual session.

On reflection, there was perhaps too much content to fit in a short 20 minute session and some pre-planning would’ve alleviated some of the time pressure. The feedback from the group unanimously stated that both parts were important and complemented one another, however a bit of time management would’ve helped the pace more. To introduce an element of play, I could send half the participants a colour through email and ask them to describe it to their partners in a breakout room depending on the size of the group.

I found the exercise very useful to think about planning future sessions and the importance of the inclusion of the element of play. Yes Gadamer, I hear you.

–

I also really enjoyed my groups’ microteaching sessions. It was great to see different teaching methodologies and media being employed as well as the deliberate use of ‘silence’ or ‘time to think’. This was particularly successful in Ocean’s session where we were asked to look at a photograph – Still Water by Roni Horn. I have the tendency to fill the space and need to allow more time for thinking and reflecting.

Lauren’s session based around monsters and characters from films was very engaging. She started the session with a breakout activity sharing our favourite creatures which was really successful as we were bringing our personal understanding and references, rather than discussing one she chose for us. There was a lot of new information but she had planned the session well and covered all grounds at an accessible pace.

Bibliography:

Chatterjee, H (2011) Object -based learning in higher education: The pedagogical power of museums (Accessed: 19th May 2021)

Faith

As illustrated in Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture on Creed, the idea of religion or belief is fluid, as it changes with the way it is interpreted. One’s positionality or upbringing often determines the importance or lack thereof in one’s life. It’s interpretation however, is both personal and can be influenced by several external factors – representation in the media, stereotypes etc.

Religion or Faith has been explored in the visual arts for centuries, it’s meaning may have changed over the years but it’s still a part of our identity that is often explored through the arts.

Religion, Belief and Faith identities UAL Website

The case studies and resources are really helpful to build knowledge around how to drive conversations around religion in an art and design context. We all have our beliefs and non-beliefs but is it important to be aware of stepping back from our positionality in this instance? Or more rightly, prioritising the students’ positionality and being open and respectful, in respect to their work and otherwise.

I think ‘Pen Portraits‘ by Angela Drisdale Gordon is a great example of how we can can establish respect and openness for each other’s point of views from the start, both students and tutors. We often have a project in Year 1 that addresses identity but it’s very much a personal project and in large cohorts there are limited opportunities to share with their peers.

However, during the pandemic, as we moved to online classrooms, my colleagues and I introduced an activity called ‘Thing of the week’ at the start of every weekly meeting. Every week one student would share something that was relevant to them – a book they were reading, an app they found useful, etc. Our first ‘thing of the week’ was during the Swiss referendum in March, a Swiss student explained the country’s semi-direct democracy system and the fact that they have referendums on issues about 4 times a year, they are sent literature through the post both for and against the issue and citizens are directly involved in laws that are passed. This week one of the issues they were voting on was the banning head coverings in the country. A muslim student in the class questioned the reasoning and the student shared the arguments that were presented from both sides, also indicated that she was against the banning. A space was created to discuss this matter that wouldn’t have happened otherwise and the muslim student felt supported by her classmates. When it was her turn to present ‘thing of the week’, it was during Ramadan and she gave a wonderful in-depth presentation on the history and significance of the festival, and how she celebrated it.

Race, Religion and Free Speech, the SoN event held in 2016 brings a lot of issues to the forefront that are relevant when discussing Religion in an educational context. Religious Literacy is paramount. Pre conceived ideas and associations made because of stereotyped views in the media can be very harmful.

A question that was raised for me – In an instance where someone is exploring satire in relation to religion, how to we balance being respectful to the religious beliefs of our peers and students and freedom of speech/humour? How do we approach contradictory views in the classroom without compromising our duty of care towards all students?

Reith lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah

Reith Lectures, Mistaken Identities. Image: BBC

I found the Reith lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah very logical and rational, however Faith is extremely personal, and logic and rationality often come second to belief. One’s beliefs exist within a larger context of practice often in solidarity within a community, which is not to say that it shouldn’t be questioned.

After listening to Creed, I went on to listen the rest of the lectures on Country, Colour and Culture as I felt all of these elements of our identity are so closely interlinked with Creed.

“Dialogue is not determinism.”

I think this is the most important takeaway from the lecture and how we should perhaps approach everything, especially religion within art and design. As Kawme Anthony Appiah pointed out, “None of us craft the world we inhabit from scratch” so within the pre-existing framework, we must contextualise our beliefs, we have a choice.

Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher education

Tariq Madood’s writing on Multiculturalism was fascinating. It echoed some of the sentiment from the first blogging task, which reiterated ‘respect for difference, rather than toleration of difference‘.

‘Multiculturalism as a mode of post-immigration integration involves not just the reversal of marginalisation but also a remaking of national citizenship so that all can have a sense of belonging to it.’

I feel like this principle needs to be applied to universities as well where there needs to be less ‘othering’, starting with the abolition of the term BAME.

It surprised me to learn that some pro-diversity advocates are reluctant to extend multiculturalism to include religious groups as it is understood by them to be a ‘voluntary identity‘. That is absolutely ludicrous as for some culture and religion are one and the same thing. How can they use faith as an excuse to exclude them. Equal rights for all, but less for some?

Craig Calhoun’s ‘Religion and Dissent in Universities’ addresses the question I posed earlier about free speech. Causing offence is obviously not encouraged and mutual respect needs to trump any actions. He also recognised that academics don’t always have the knowledge to drive discussions where religion is part of the conversation, but like in several other instances – for example, being actively anti-racist, there is the need for academics to further their religious literacy to understand their religious students better.

–

Bibliography

Religion, Belief and Faith identities UAL Website

Reith Lectures: Kwame Anthony Appiah: Mistaken Identities

Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher education

Disability

The resources shared for this blogging task really broadened my limited understanding around disability and were very thought provoking. The Shades of Noir TOR in particular helped in grasping the language used around Disability – both what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and added new terminology that makes me look at it through different lenses. It made me realise that the language we use – casually, sometimes unknowingly plays into the stereotyped narratives, biases or prejudices we have around disability. I also read the Evolution of Disability Models from SoN to understand the various approaches that have been taken over the years. I found that the ‘Social’, ‘Identity’ and ‘New Radical’ model might be the most empowering, as they recognise societal and political barriers and ‘claim disability as a positive identity’ (Brewer et al. 2012.5).

I think it’s key to address the language we use. The seemingly small shift from ‘unable’ and ‘en-able’ for example, or even ‘creatively able’, the term Larree Carnes came up with in 2004 can help us confront and shift our understanding or our approach to people with disabilities, break down stereotypes and help us become better allies to give our disabled students confidence and agency. It is so beautifully addressed in Christine Sun Kim’s film. After feeling like ‘she was boxed in by her language restraints’, Sun Kim ‘reclaims sound as her property’ to explore it through the ‘physicality of sound’. She reminds us to listen with all our senses and address ideas of ownership.

The ‘Economic model’ was very accurately depicted in Ken Loach’s 2016 film I, Daniel Blake. Watching the film was perhaps the first time I started to understand the experience of someone with a ‘non-visible’ disability and how there does not seem to be the compassion, understanding or safety net that so many of us enjoy and expect from society or the state. Shortly after the release Ken appeared on a Question Time programme where he had to defend the accuracy of his film, which depicted real life lived experiences of people who were stuck in a loop of unemployment and lack of access to support allowance as a Conservative MP on the panel argued that his film was a drama and didn’t reflect lived experiences. Society and government’s inability to identify these nuances are scary and potentially life-threatening, and only a greater understanding of disability from everyone in society will address this. In the context on teaching, a misunderstanding of a students’ disability can have similar consequences where the ‘intention’ of helping is there but they don’t end up receiving any help as they are sent from one team to another, none of whom fully understand their position and further distresses the student.

It may not be the best example but I guess what I’m trying to say is that as educators, it is imperative that we understand the experiences of people with disabilities and what help is available through the University and whether those systems are working. I was aware of the University Disability Services but instead of just signposting students to them, I will in the future be following up and checking if the students’ needs were met and if not, stepping in to further help.

Being a non-disabled person, I have not had to deal with the many obstacles or barriers that society has created to navigate everyday life, where even the seemingly most basic tasks are made inaccessible. Khairani Borokka’s ‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from Touring Eve and Mary are Having Coffee while chronically ill’ really brought this home for me. Reading her experience touring around India made me very uncomfortable but reminded me of the deep rooted attitude towards disability in my home country, where it is seen in some parts through the Religious model of disability and in some parts through discrimination and considered taboo to discuss. This made me think of not just how we as the University address disability, but how fellow students may treat their peers. How can we ensure that students who’s experiences with disability are different (or non-existent) understand these terms and the impact they may have on another students’ experience? Do we embed sessions in the curriculum that discuss inclusivity and where staff and students participate, or are we ‘othering’ these issues by creating a separate space for discussion?

I am conflicted between the use of people-first language as opposed to identity-first, and I understand that some people with disabilities prefer the latter as it works with the social model better. I feel that Borokka’s experience in Delhi where she was introduced to a government official purely through the lens of her disability is de-humanising and as she said was a real ‘pyschological blow to her dignity.’ Of course in this case, it was inexcusable, but by using identity-first, do we inevitably start with making a point about ‘difference’ and create a barrier? Should we have a discussion with our students about their preferences, like is now the case with pronouns?

I will continue to read more of the SoN resources to learn more and hopefully find answers to some of the questions I’ve raised for myself above.

Bibliography

Film by Christine Sun Kim

UAL Disability Service Webpages

‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from Touring Eve and Mary are Having Coffee’ by Khairani Barokka

Shades of Noir Disability Terms of Reference